How to Gain Influencers for Your Website or Blog and Why It’s Important
According to a 2018 survey, a whopping 92 percent of marketers who used influencer marketing in 2017 found it useful. And 39 percent of those marketers who used influencer marketing claimed that they planned to increase their budgets even more in 2018.
Many marketers are beginning to rely on influencer marketing for a multitude of reasons. The main reason: traditional digital ads are becoming less effective because around 20-30 percent of Americans have installed ad blockers on their devices, with even more installing them every day.
Continue reading to learn more why influencer marketing is important and how you can gain influencers for your own website or blog.
What is Influencer Marketing?
With every passing day, marketing messages and campaigns are generating less and less credibility. Consumers are becoming desensitized toward them and actively dislike them. But consumers like to hear from influencers – individuals who are trusted experts or well known in their fields and have a strong following of supporters. Influencers have the social power to influence the perception of others or get them to do something different. They already have a broad reach, with a community of hundreds, thousands, or sometimes millions of followers that they have established and nurtured on their own. And they can help you sell your products or services and promote and grow your blog by promoting them to those in your target audience who follow them. They essentially help you market your business, products, services, etc.
Why Influencer Marketing is Important
Influencer marketing accomplishes the following:
Enhances Your Trustworthiness, Credibility, and Authority
Online consumers are much more likely to trust someone they already follow – someone they already have a relationship with online and who they like hearing from on a regular basis. Of course, you already share content claiming how amazing your products are. But if a trusted or well-known individual claims your products are amazing, it’s much more believable. For example, a football player who says certain football equipment is reliable, comfortable, and safe, his followers will trust him much more than they would a marketing campaign that simply lists features of the equipment. A football player’s endorsement of your equipment automatically gains you credibility and authority, because he would be very hesitant to endorse equipment that isn’t optimal or safe.
Increases Your Revenue, ROI, Conversions, and Engagement Rates
When influencers work on your behalf, you’re able to reach your target audience where they’re already hanging out online. And this will ensure that they engage with your promotional materials without you having to find and attract them to your website yourself. When you implement influencer marketing, you’ll automatically increase the engagement rates on your website and blog, and even your sales revenue.
According to Amazon’s Alexa Blog, a survey conducted by Burst Media discovered that brands with an influencer marketing program received $6.85 in earned media value for every $1 of paid media. So, not only do influencers ensure more users are clicking on your online promotional material, they ensure that you maintain a sizeable return on your marketing investments and land more online conversions and sales.
Advances Your Existing Content and Marketing Strategy
Sometimes influencers don’t even help promote products or services. Sometimes they can simply help you share your existing content. They can help you grow your existing blog audience by sharing it with their social media followers, and so on. They can easily help you advance your existing content and marketing strategies without you having to do much at all.
Improves Awareness of Your Brand
Each time an influencer shares links to your website or blog with their thousands of followers, it significantly improves the overall awareness of your brand online. Now, hundreds of people – people who never before even known about you and what you do – will click on that link or read your latest blog posts and subscribe.
How to Gain and Nurture Influencers
Once you discover how important influencer marketing is, you’ll want to know how you can gain and nurture your influencers as well as your own target audience. Here are a few things you can and should do.
Do Your Research
When considering influencers, don’t simply look at the number of followers they have and then assume that they will be a good fit for your marketing goals and your overall online aspirations. Consider their reputations, their expertise, and whether their overall message and voice is compatible with your business, blog, or mission. Thoroughly investigate how they interact with their followers, the content they share, and other entities they endorse and have worked with in the past.
A follower who doesn’t post frequently or who doesn’t have an actively engaged audience may not do much for your marketing initiatives. And if they have messages that don’t truly align with your business or mission, it could even do more harm than good. Suppose you have an organic farming business that promotes sustainable resources and practices. You won’t want a well-known chef advocating for your goods online if she doesn’t also fully believe in your mission and goals and work to promote it on her own. You don’t want her endorsement if she supports entities that actively work against your mission or conduct unsustainable practices.
Do your research before you ask an influencer to help you. Make sure that your reputation, trustworthiness, credibility, brand awareness, and sales will grow in a positive direction with their help.
Build Real Relationships with Influencers and Users
Chances are high that it will be easy to build real and positive relationships with the influencers who are right for your brand and mission. For example, if you’re promoting a blog that discusses women’s rights and you approach an influencer who has a positive influence in the feminist arena already, it will probably be easy to form a real relationship with her based on respect and admiration. And if you approach a respected fitness guru to endorse your workout clothing line, you both will become energized about promoting fitness in other people’s lives. And so on. Whatever you do, when approaching influencers, think about forming real relationships with them; don’t just focus on dollar signs or what you can get out of it, or you may never be able to gain their full trust or support.
Also, don’t forget to work with your influencers to further engage their followers, who are now your followers, too. Each party should remember to consistently engage with followers and users to provide relevant, consistent content and experiences that they will find useful or entertaining.
Rely on Micro-Influencers, Too
Unfortunately, you can’t always get someone as famous as Oprah to endorse your products, services, blog, etc. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get the right influencers to help you online, especially if you’re a small or local entity. In fact, one study revealed that micro-influencers have 22.2 times more conversations than typical users do; they interact with their user bases a lot, sometimes more than well-known influencers do.
Instead of trying to get the most famous online influencer possible, focus on micro-influencers who have a much stronger connection to what you do. For instance, if you make and sell jewelry online, find a model or well-known photographer who lives in your local community and who has a strong online following to help you promote your products and sales.
Don’t Forget Your Business Goals and Desired Outcomes
Influencer marketing should still have a place in your overall marketing strategy and budget. Don’t forget to clearly signal and track the business goals and desired outcomes you want to achieve. You can recruit a well-known children’s rights advocate, for example, to share links to your blog for your nonprofit that develops afterschool programs. Then, track whether this influencer marketing is gaining more subscribers, more donations, etc.
Once you understand the positive impact that influencer marketing can have on your website or blog, you’ll want to implement it right away. Just be sure to keep the information above in mind so you can successfully gain and nurture your influencers for the long term.